More headlines: George W. Bush on Budget & Economy

A biennial budget will avoid budget gridlock

With a split government -- the current Democratic administration vs. the GOP-controlled Congress, for example -- yearly budgeting often results in gridlock. “A biennial budget
would lead to conservative budgeting. A yearly budget leads to squabbling.” Bush added that he would seek to draft legislation that would end the threat of government shutdowns.

Source: CNN.com
Oct 21, 2000

Claims of Gore’s spending are based on inflated figures

Bush charged that Gore’s spending proposals are three times what Clinton proposed in 1992. But back then, federal spending was constrained by the federal deficit, which has been wiped out during Clinton’s terms.

While Bush is correct that Gore’s
spending proposals exceed his, the combination of Bush’s spending plans and tax cuts would eat up more of the surplus than Gore would with his more modest tax cut and his larger spending plans.

To further complicate matters, Bush said Gore’s spending
proposals are greater than the combination of what Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis proposed in 1984 and 1988, respectively. However, it appears Bush arrived at the number by using inflation-adjusted spending proposals and comparing them with estimates
of Gore’s spending plans prepared by partisan groups such as the Republican staff of the Senate Budget Commitee. Gore’s total spending, according to the campaign, would be about $88 billion a year, not the $127 billion the Bush camp contends.

Source: Boston Globe analysis of St. Louis debate
Oct 18, 2000

Claim of Gore’s 20,000 new bureaucrats is unlikely

ANALYSIS: Bush is basing his claims on a partisan report by the Republican members of the Senate Budget Committee. To get their numbers, they applied today’s ratio of
employees to expenditures to their own estimates of Gore’s budget. The assumption-that more spending means more employees-DOESN“T NECESSARILY FOLLOW. In fact, during the 1990s, spending went up (by 38%) while the federal work force went down (by 12%).

Claim of 1/4 for important projects is overestimate

BUSH: I want to dedicate 1/2 of the surplus to Social Security, 1/4 for important projects, and send 1/4 back to the people who pay the bills.

ANALYSIS: Bush’s $475 billion in spending initiatives would incur $100 billion in interest costs because
that money won’t be used to pay down the debt. Adding that to his total, he’s really spending roughly $575 billion or 13% of the surplus on “important projects.” That’s SIGNIFCANTLY LESS than the “1/4 of the surplus” that he claimed. And his $1.3
trillion tax cut, plus the $300 billion interest cots it would require, would eat up about 35% of the available surplus, a LOT MORE than the 1/4 he claims.

1980 tax cuts, deregulation, and trade led to strong economy

Who deserves credit for the longest economic expansion in U.S. history? Did the White House help foster it, or were the Democrats, as Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush contends, just lucky? “The momentum of today’s prosperity began in the
1980s-with sound money, deregulation, the opening of global trade and a 25% tax cut. The economic growth of the 1980s provided the venture capital for the technology revolution of the 1990s,” Bush said in a major speech on taxes.

Source: Peter G. Gosselin, LA Times
Aug 21, 2000

Country is not better off as a result of Clinton/Gore years

Bush insisted that Gore was mistaken in arguing that the country is better off today. “I don’t think the school system is better off. I don’t think the morale in the military is better off. I don’t think our standing in the world is better off. No
question the stock market is higher. But prosperity hasn’t reached throughout all of society.” One of the central aims of this week’s convention is to convince voters that the nation now is in a stronger position than when Bush’s father was president.

Source: Ronald Brownstein, LA Times
Aug 13, 2000

The Texas budget is balanced, despite Gore’s attack

Our Texas budget is balanced and in the black. We have a surplus of $1.4 billion in the bank. For Vice President Gore to claim otherwise for his own political purposes is a
travesty - he should be ashamed. Texas doesn’t need the Vice President to lecture us about balanced budgets - every budget I have signed in Texas has been balanced. The
Texas Legislature, Democrats and Republicans, will make an appropriation when it convenes in January to pay for higher than expected costs in Medicaid and in prisons - we have more than enough money to pay those costs. I am proud that under my
leadership, Texas has increased spending for education and health care, built and funded prisons, cut taxes by record amounts, and we still have a large surplus.

Source: Speech, “Response to Gore’s Attack on Texas”
Jul 20, 2000

Commit funds to education and tax cuts

We can show Washington how to handle a budget surplus. During times of plenty, we must not commit our state to programs we cannot afford in the future. We must meet basic needs, dedicate the lion’s share of new money to public schools, then send money
back to the hands who earned it - the taxpayers of Texas. Tomorrow, I will submit a budget that is balanced and limits government’s growth. It reflects my two major priorities: school children and taxpayers.

Source: 1999 State of the State Address, Austin TX
Jan 27, 1999

Tax financing of sports stadiums ok, after vote

Gov. Bush supports using local tax money to finance the building of sports stadiums, if it is “approved by voters and does not raise state taxes.” Gov. Bush supports banning the casino-style slot machines known as “eight-liners.”

Source: Vote Smart NPAT 1998
Jul 2, 1998

Surest way to bust economy is Gore’s enlarged government

BUSH [to Gore]: The surest way to bust this economy is to increase the role and the size of the federal government. The Senate Budget Committee did a study of Gore’s expenditures: it could conceivably bust the budget by $900 billion. That means he’s
either going to have to raise your taxes by $900 billion or go into the Social Security surplus for $900 billion.

GORE: What he’s quoting is not the Senate Budget Committee, it is a partisan press release by the Republicans. And as for the surest way
to threaten our prosperity, having a $1.9 trillion tax cut, almost half of which goes to the wealthy, and a $1 trillion Social Security privatization proposal, is the surest way to put our budget into deficit, raise interest rates and put our prosperity
at risk.

BUSH: I can’t let the man continue with fuzzy math. It’s $1.3 trillion, Mr. Vice President. And it’s going to go to everybody who pays taxes. I’m not going to be a pick-and-chooser. What is fair is everybody who pays taxes ought to get relief.

Source: Presidential debate, Boston MA
Oct 3, 2000

Don’t let Gore bring back big government; 200 new programs

Bush painted Gore on as a big spender who would bring back the era of expansive government and threaten prosperity. “He is proposing the largest increase in federal spending in 35 years.” He said Gore was proposing more than 200 new or expanded federal
programs that would result in an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 new federal employees. He said there would be 412 new Medicare regulations and more audits of taxpayers. “All this could amount to over $2 trillion in bigger government in 10 years.”

Source: AP Story, NY Times
Sep 28, 2000

Bush’s budget: $265B left of surplus after 10 years

Bush Budget 2001-2010 ($Billion)

Surplus Amount

Total Surplus

4,563

Social Security Lock Box

(2,388)

On-Budget Surplus

2,173

Tax Cuts and Spending

Tax Plan

1,317.0

Medicare Rx & Reform

198.3

Health

131.9

Defense

45.0

Education

47.6

Compassion/Charity

23.9

Agriculture

7.6

Housing/IDAs

6.6

Environment

5.3

Crime & Ot
Domestic

8.5

Savings from Gov’t Reform

(196.4)

Interest Cost

312.5

Total Tax Cuts & Spending

1,907.7

Source: Press Release, “Budget Numbers”
Sep 5, 2000

Gore: Feds spend surplus; Bush: taxpayers spend it

Gore’s and Bush’s [tax cut and spending] plans would reduce the surplus by an equivalent amount. [Where Gore and Bush differ is in] philosophies of government:

Gore believes that government should direct and control the use of the surplus that is
not allocated to debt reduction, whether on the tax side or the spending side. He would increase government spending substantially more than Bush, would cut taxes less, and would aim more of his tax cuts to specific taxpayer behavior. Gore’s proposed
tax cuts are little different substantively from direct spending, except that they go through the tax code.

By contrast, Bush would “spend” more of the surplus on across-the-board tax cuts. Moreover, most of his reductions, in contrast to Gore’s,
would not depend on taxpayers’ behavior, but would be given to all of them in the form of rate decreases. Cutting taxes allows people to keep more of their money, so that they decide, rather than the government, how to apportion it.

Source: Bruce Bartlett, Editorial, NY Times, p. A27
Aug 22, 2000

Spend $586B surplus on tax cuts, health, & defense

Budget surplus:

Bush proposals

Gore proposals

Estimate for 2002-2006

$586 billion

$164 billion

Estimate for 2001-2010

No estimate made

$746 billion

Economic assumptions

Uses lower estimates of Congressional spending & 2.7% annual growth

Assumes spending will grow at the rate of inflation; 2.6% annual growth

How surplus would be
used

For fiscal years

2002-2006

2001-2010

Tax cuts

$483 billion; total $1.3 trillion by 2010

$250 billion, includes some of Clinton’s FY2000 proposals

Some major spending
proposals

$46 billion for health care

$13 billion for education

$25 billion for defense

$64 billion to pay down the national debt

$432 billion for Medicare

$146 billion for health insurance

Source: NY Times, p. 22
Apr 30, 2000

10-year surplus: $2T Social Security; $1T debt; $1T tax cut

I believe we’ve got $4 trillion [in surpluses available] over 10 years; $2 trillion of which will go to save Social Security and pay down debt; $1 trillion available for
debt repayment and other programs and $1 trillion, over a 10-year period, for a meaningful, substantial, real tax cut to the people.

Source: GOP Debate in Manchester NH
Jan 26, 2000

Use presidential power to get money away from Congress

McCAIN [to Bush]: You seem to depict the role of the president as a hapless bystander. [Clinton] is threatening to shut down the government and vetoing bills to force the congress to
spend more money. An active president, i.e. me, will veto bills and threaten to shut down the government to make them spend less money.

Bush: It’s the president’s job to make sure Congress
doesn’t have the money to spend in the first place. It is the president’s job to stand up to express the will of the people, advocate and
fight for a meaningful real tax cut. And that’s what I’m going to do.

Source: (X-ref from McCain) GOP Debate in Manchester NH
Jan 26, 2000

Guarantees future surpluses with his tax plan

Q: Let’s suppose that the projected surpluses in your tax plan fail to materialize in full or in part. What part of your tax package gets dropped first?
A: I refuse to accept the premise that surpluses are going to decline if I’m the president. I think they’re going to increase, because my plan will increase productivity by cutting marginal rates.

Source: Phoenix Arizona GOP Debate
Dec 7, 1999

Supports Balanced Budget Amendment

Gov. Bush stated that he would support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution requiring an annual balanced federal budget.

Source: Vote Smart NPAT 1998
Jul 2, 1998

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